Hierarchical, architected materials have the potential to transform military applications, providing components that simultaneously offer the best performance attributes of ceramics, metals, and plastics. Hierarchical materials concurrently realize function features on multiple length scales, for example from sub-micron up to a millimeter level. This allows large void space in a material structure to be filled with load bearing members, adding compliance to the material without significantly increasing the density.
Prior art fabrication techniques typically have limitations to a single size range and cannot realize hierarchical structure over a sufficient range of scales to reduce material brittleness without sacrificing material strength. Additionally, the few fabrication processes that do allow fabrication of hierarchical structures at multiple length scales do not scale to large area production, limiting the integration of hierarchical materials into design components for military and defense applications.